
Class FI03, 



Book .T? ?K3 



J 



' ^ '^^ statues of Jonathan Trumbull and Roger Sherman. 



SPEECH 



HON. STEPHEN ¥. KELLOGG, 

OF COISTNECTICUT, 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, APRIL 2 9, 1872. 



The House having under consideration the follow- 
ing concurrent resolutions of the Senate — 

Resolved by the Senate, (the House of Representa- 
tives concurring,) That the thanks of Congress are 
presented to the Governor, and through him to the 
people of the State of Connecticut, for the statues 
of Jonathan Trumbull and Roger Sherman, whose 
names are so honorably identified with our revo- 
lutionary history. 

Renolved, That these works of art are accepted in 
the name of tlie nation, and assigned a place in the 
old Hall of the House of Representatives, already set 
aside by act of Congress lor statues of eminent citi- 
zens, and that a copy of this resolution, signed by the 
President of the Senate and Speaker of the House 
of Representatives, be transmitted to the Governor 
of Connecticut; 

Mr. KELLOGG said : 

Mr. Speaker: The State of Connecticut has 
intrusted to its representatives in the two 
branches of Congress the grateful duty of 
presenting, in a formal manner, the statues 
of two " deceased persons who have been 
citizens thereof, and illustrious for their his- 
toric renown or from distinguished civic or 
military services," such as she has determined 
to be " worthy of this national commemora- 
tion." 

The law under which these statues are pre- 
sented to the people of the United States was 
passed by Congress in July, 18G4, during the 
closing year of tlie great conflict for the (ires- 
ervation of the Union of the States. From 
the time of its passage, as well as from the fact 
that our State is here with a history of nearly 
.two hundred and fifty years as a State and a 
colony, and that the popuiaradmiration always 
follows military renown, it might have been 
expected that one statue at least should com- 
memorate some one of her deceased citizens 
for his military achievements. Without includ- 
ing the wars of the present century, she had 
gone through the eiglit years of suffering, pri- 
vation, and blood of the Revolution ; the seven 
years' war with the French and Indians ; the 
wars of the sovereigns, William, Anne, and 
George, with France, Spain, and their colo- 
nies, and the earlier Indian wars; the latter 
so fierce and so bloody that at the close of 
King Philip's brief war, as some quaint old 
historian tells ps, " every eleventh family was 
houseless, and every eleventh soldier bad sunk 
to his grave." 



Going back to her earliest history, she might 
have selected her first great captain and sol- 
dier. Mason, who saved the infant colony in 
and around Hartford from extermination, and 
with his little band of ninety men utterly de- 
stroyed one of the mightiest and most warlike 
of the Indian tribes of New England: and 
whom Cromwell afterward sent for to return 
to England, to become a major general in the 
bravest army that had ever fought on English 
soil. Or, coming down to the period wlien she 
rose from a colony to her position as a State, 
she might have selected Wooster, who, with 
Greene, of Rhode Island, was among the eight 
generals first appointed by the colonial Con- 
gress in June, 1775, "lavish of his lii"e," as 
the historian tells us ; and who was the first of 
those eight generals to fall in battle at the head 
of his troops, defending the soil of his native 
State. She might have selected her own Put- 
nam, for whom a statue is about being erected 
in one of her capital cities, who "dared to lead 
where any dared to follow," and who, as the 
bells rang out the first alarm of actual war 
from Lexington common and Concord, left his 
plow in the unfinished furrow and rode the 
same horse one hundred miles in eighteen 
hours, reaching the scene of v/ar at Cambridge 
by sunrise the next morning. She might have 
selected her young patriot and scholar, Nathan 
Hale, her early martyr to the cause, who, to 
"drum-beat and heart-beat," trod tlie path- 
way to the tree of death with exultation, and 
whose only regret, as expressfd to his brtital 
executioners, was " that he had but one life 
to give for his country." Or, as I understand 
some States have determined, if she had looked 
over the long roll of her sons who in our 
own day have laid down their lives to preserve 
the Union of these Stales, she might have 
selected, under the terms of this resolution, 
a Sedgwick, a Lyon, a Foote, or a Mansfield, 
But no ; she has chosen no one from all her 
heroes in history, however illustrious or how- 
ever distinguished, who had won his renown 
in the confused noise of battle and with gar- 
ments rolled in blood; she brings with emi- 
nent fitness as her oQ"ering two of her greatest 
and purest men, who in their day and genera- 
tion gave their lives to the work of establish- 



r '^^3 



ing a State and a nation upon the lasting found- 
ations of virtue and liberty. Bancroft says : 

"History has ever celebrated the commanders of 
armies on which victory has been entailed, the he- 
roes who have won hiurels in scenes of carnage and 
rapine. Has it no place for the founders of States ; 
the wise legislators who struck the rock in the wil- 
derness, and the wafers of liberty gushed forth in 
copious and perennial fountains ?" 

Those eloquent words of the historian were 
written concerning two of the founders of the 
infant colony of Connecticut, one of whom was 
the author of the first of all the American 
constitutions that deserves the name of a con- 
stitution. And yet, when she had rolled up 
the scroll of all the names blazoned on her 
history for their military renown, there still 
remained on its open pages a list of names that 
well might have made her pause and hesitate. 
With " founders of States," like Haynes, Hop- 
kins, Davenport, and Eaton; with a scholar 
like Noah Webster, whose name is known 
wherever the English langunge is studied or 
spoken; with presidents of Yale College, like 
Timothy D wight and Jeremiah Day; with 
theologians and pulpit orators, like Thomas 
Hooker, Jonatlian Edwards, Joseph Bellamy, 
and Lyman Beeclier; with statesmen, like 
William Samuel Johnson, Oliver Wolcott, 
(father and son,) and Chief Justice Ellsworth; 
with a constellation of poets, in which shine 
Brainard, Hillhouse, Halleck, and Percival, 
as a few only of its bright stars; with invent- 
ors like Eli Whitney and John Fitch, who have 
added ages to the inarch of improvement and 
millions to the wealth of the nation and the 
world — she has left them all with others as 
names the world will not willingly let die, and 
has selected her "model Governor" at the 
period when she emerged from a colony to a 
State, and her " wise legislator" and eminent 
statesman of the same generation. She brings 
you the statues of Jonathan Trumbull and 
KoGER Sherman. 

It is well for us to pause for a brief hour 
in our work of legislation to contemplate the 
character and services of two such men. I 
approach the subject with trembling solicitude, 
for 1 know I must fall very far short of doing 
justice to their character and their fame. 1 
shall be pardoned if J speak somewhat of 
the history of Connecticut at the period in 
which they lived ; for the biography of these 
two men and the history of their State for 
forty years are nearly one and the same. 

Governor Trumbull was born in 1710, in Leb- 
anon, Connecticut, a town which may be well 
styled in that Siate as the " mother of Gov- 
ernors," and which his biographer supposes 
to have been named, like the ancient Lebanon, 
from a grove of goodly cedars. h\ a period 
of one hundred and two years. Governors born 
in that town have held the oflSce thirty-four 
years. 

Entering Harvard College, Trumbull grad- 
uated with high honors when only seventeen 
years of age. He prepared himself for the 
ministry, and with a ripe scholarship and 
attainments in all branches of knowledge sur- 
passed by few at that day, he was just enter- 



ing upon his work of life when the death of 
an older brother changed all his plans. He 
assumed the charge of his brother's affairs, 
in connection with his father, and became a 
merchant. At the age of twenty-ihree he 
was elected to the Colonial Assembly, and 
was often reelected, and was several years 
speaker of the house. At the age of thirty 
he was assistant or member of the council, 
or upper branch of the colonial Legislature. 
With his love of all useful knowledge he also 
pursued the study of law, and was for many 
years a judge of one or more of the courls in 
the colony. He was chief justice of its high- 
est court in 17G6, Roger Sherman being one 
of his associates upon the bench. For nearly 
fifty years, until he voluntarily laid off the 
robes of office, after the peace which secured 
to the colonies their independence as States, 
he was constantly kept in public life by the 
people of his colony and State. 

In the war of England with France, which 
began in the colonies in 1754, Jonathan Trum- 
bull was one of the most earnest and energetic 
men in raising troops and supplies. Nearly 
every year during that war he was one of the 
commissioners of the colony of Connecticut 
to confer with the Governors and commission- 
ers of other colonies in planning campaigns, 
and procuring the means to carry them on, 
while he was constant in his efforts at home 
for the same purpose. Twice during this 
period was he appointed colonial agent to the 
court of King George, but he preferred to 
remain in the colony and give his energy and 
lime to the work of the war. Though the 
colony of Connecticut was more remote from 
the danger of hostile inroads by the Frencli 
and Indians from Canada than the other New 
England colonies, and though their houses and 
their firesides were comparatively safe from 
the torch and the scalpiiig-knife, yet the little 
colony of Connecticut, by the energy of Trum- 
bull and his associates, furnished about thirty 
thousand men from its humble villages and 
scattered hamlets for the different campaigns 
of that war. 

The men were eirlisted for a single campaign 
only, as hostile operations were then seldom 
carried on in the winter season ; and year after 
year did the young colony send its quota of 
five thousand men, and more, into the contest. 
Though the provincial troops at the outset were 
sneered at as raw militia by the British offi- 
cers, yet they proved their efficiency in many 
a tangled ambuscade and many a hand-to-hand 
conflict with the French and their savage allies, 
when British officers with their regular troops 
were powerless. Not a forest in all the broad 
wilderness between Connecticut and the Can- 
adas, that was not threaded and trodden by 
Putnam and his Connecticut rangers. And 
from the day of disaster and gloom, when the 
news came of Braddock's defeat in the wilder- 
ness, down to the hour when Wolfe fell amid 
the shouts of the final and crowning victory 
on the plains before Quebec, Trumbull devoted 
himself to the work of defending the colonies 
and carrying the war into the enemy's country, 



with an energy that never wearied and a faith 
that never faltered. 

But it was the period of twenty years suc- 
ceeding the close of that war that gave Trum- 
bull his high place in onr history. Though 
engrossed with public duties, he was a success- 
ful and wealthy merchant, largely engaged in 
commerce with ships of his own. Ardent in 
his patriotism, he was among the first to resist 
the acts of Parliament for taxation of the col- 
onies. He refused to take the oath required 
under the stamp act, and would not remain in 
the room when the Governor and some of his 
associates in otKce proposed to take it. He 
was deputy Governor in 1766, and became 
Governor of the colony in 1769. He saw his 
wealth all swept away by disasters at sea, and 
by the measures of the British Government 
that destroyed the trade of the colonies. He 
might have enriched himself by taking sifles 
as every other colonial Governor did with the 
mother country. 

While his old college classmate, the tory 
Hutchinson of Massachusetts, was harassing 
that colony; while Tryon of New York, Dun- 
more of Virginia, and the Governors of the 
other colonies were doing their utmost to 
defeat the purposes of the patriots, and keep 
the colonies in subjection to the English Gov- 
ernment, Trumbull alone of them all resisted 
its oppressive measures. It is true that he 
was elected by the people of his colony, while 
the others were generally appointed by the 
Crown; but some of them had been born, 
and others had lived long in the colonies; one 
of them, even, a son of the patriot Benjamin 
Franklin was Governor of New Jersey. While 
they were instruments to crush the rising spirit 
of patriotism, Trumbull was industriously gath- 
ering magazines of powder and ball and mil- 
itary supplies of all kinds ; for he early foresaw 
the conflict that was sure to come. To his 
unwearied exertions is chiefly due the gratify- 
ing fact in her history, that as in the old French 
war, so Connecticut again furnished during the 
Revolution more men and supplies, in propor- 
tion to her population and means, than any 
other State, and more men in fact than any 
State except Massachusetts. 

And there is another equally interestingfact 
in her history, that with repeated invasions by 
the enemy during that war, and with so many 
men absent in the Continental armies, no hostile 
force was ever suffered to remain hardly a week 
within her limits. Though her regiments held 
the Highlands under Putnam; though they were 
in the northern array under Gates ; though 
they were in the scanty lines of Washington's 
army ; the energy of Trumbull was such that 
no invading force was ever able to hold itself 
but a few hours or days at most within the State. 
Yet she was peculiarly liable to invasion ; for 
there was always an enemy within a few hours' 
sail of her coast. New York, in her immedi- 
ate vicinity, was held by the British forces 
from its capture in 1776, down to the close of 
the war, and their close proximity led to re- 
peated incursions into Connecticut. Trum- 
bull infused his own spirit into her people, and 



the advancing footsteps of the enemy were still 
fresh upon her soil in every instance of inva- 
sion, when they were forced to retrace them to 
escape ignominious defeat ; and her blazing 
towns and villages were still burning to light 
their retreating footsteps to the shelter of the 
vessels that had brought them to her borders. 

Trumbull bore the honored title and dis- 
tinction of "the rebel Governor" in Eng- 
land. Washington gave him the good old 
homely name of "Brother Jonathan," by 
which he and his country have been and will 
be known the world over. Washington relied 
upon him, as on an elder brother, for counsel 
and aid all through the war. When he first 
assumed command of an army without ammu- 
nition and without supplies, and his council 
of war could devise no means to procure them, 
he "consulted Brother Jonathan," and the 
supplies came. When his army was starving 
at Valley Forge he again appealed to the Gov- 
ernor of Connecticut, and the choicest of her 
cattle and the fattest of her flocks were sent 
to their relief. Again, in the winter of 1780, 
he relied upon Trumbull to supply his northern 
army with provisions, and relied not in vain. 
And the final campaign that broke the power 
of the English armies and culminated in the 
surrender at Y^orktown, was planned by Wash- 
ington, with Trumbull and Count Rochambeau 
in council, in a house near the banks of the 
Connecticut. 

The war was ended. Trumbull in the return 
of peace saw his own rest from the unremit- 
ting toil of years. He had sat in the State 
council of war one thousand days during its 
progress, with all his other duties as Gov- 
ernor and chief organizer of the work of 
war. Though a grateful State would have 
retained him in the office which he had held 
fourteen years, he was now past threescore 
and ten, and he felt that his work was done. 
He retired with honors such as were never 
paid to a retiring Governor in his State before 
or since his day ; and two years after, the peo- 
ple of his State were mourning as bereaved 
cnildren over his grave. 

I shall not attempt by any poor words of 
mine to portray his character, further than 
this brief sketch will disclose it. Bushnell, 
in his historic estimate of Connecticut, a 
speech that ought to be preserved and read 
by every fireside in the State, says of Trum- 
bull : 

" He was one of those prudent, true-minded men 
that hold an even hand of authority in stormy times, 
and suffer nothing to fall out of place, either by 
excess or defect of service; to whom Washington 
could say, 'I cannot sufficiently express to you my 
thanks, not only for your constant and ready com- 
pliance with every request of mine, but for your 
l)rudent forecast in ordinary matters, so that your 
force has been collected and put in motion as soon 
as it has been demanded. " 

Washington wrote of him, also, after his 
death : 

"Along and well-spent life in the service of his 
country places Governor Trumbull among the first 
of patriots." 

His biographer sums up his character: 
"If strong intellect and extensive knowledge. 



fixed industry, the conception of great ends, and 
perseverance and success in their execution; if an 
exulted sense of honor, incorruptible integrity, 
energy of purpose, consummate prudence, impreg- 
nable fortitude, a broad, generous, and queuchlc-s 
patriotism, charities ever jictive, wise, and fervent — 
•if all these qualities, in union with a most amiiible 
temper and the gentlest manners, and in affiliation, 
too, with all the noble graces of the Christian faith; 
if these constitute a great and a good man, that man 
was Trumbull." 

Fortunate as was the country in Governor 
Trumbull's own life, he and his country were 
also fortunate in his children. His sonin law 
■was, with Sherman, a signer of the Declaration 
of Independence. His four sons, he gave 
them all to his country' s service. One of them 
was the first Commissary General of the armies 
of the United States, a place at that day of 
almost insurmountable difficulty, as the young 
States were mostly without tetits, magazines, 
or supplies. His labors and anxieties in that 
trying position broke him down in health, and 
he died in the midst of the struggle while 
disaster and uncertainty hung over the cause. 
Another son, of his own name, rose to the rank 
of Paymaster General, and was selected by 
Washington as his confidential secretary ; and 
after the close of the war he was elected to 
the House of Representatives in the First 
Congress under the Constitution. He was 
Speaker of the House in the Second Congress, 
and afterward a Senator. His State then 
called him home to fill the executive position 
his father had so long honored. He was elected 
Governor, and filled the office by successive 
reelections eleven years, and died in the office. 
The mantle of the father had descended upon 
the son, and never since the days of the 
prophets hud it fallen upon one more worthy 
to wearit. And the youngestson, fresh from his 
college studies, plunged into the war with all the 
fire and zeal of boyhood, and at the age of nine- 
teen marched to the army before Boston as 
adjutant of the first Connecticut regiment. 
Young as he was, he was made aid-de-camp 
to the Commander-in-Chief of the American 
forces the first year of the war, and was colonel 
and adjutant general the second year. His 
pencil has preserved for us the scenes of some 
of the principal events of the war for inde- 
pendence. The Trumbull gallery at Yale Col- 
lege is alike his monument and his tomb. By 
authority of Congress, in 1817, he was author- 
ized to paint the historical pictures for the 
Rotunda of the new Capitol. So long as the 
stones of this Capitol shall remain in their 
places let the statue of the father stand among 
the founders and benefactors of all the States 
of the Union ; and so long as its lofty Dome 
shall swell toward the skies, let the son speak 
from the canvas of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and of the battle scenes by which 
we gained our place among the nations of the 
earth. 

The youth of Sherman was far diflFerent 
from that of Trumbull. For him no college 
opened wide ils doors ; for him there was no 
royal or easy road to learning. For him, his 
earliest youth was a toil and struggle for the 
ordinary necessities of life. Born in Newton, 



Massachusetts, in April, 1721, his parents 
removed with him two yearsaf'ter to Stoughton, 
in that State. With no means of education, 
except the limited and meager facilities of the 
common schools of that day, as much below 
those of the present as the latter are below 
the highest universities of the land, he was 
early sent as an apprentice to learn the trade 
of a shoemaker ; and at tlie age of nineteen 
was left lo the care and support of a widowed 
mother and a large family of younger chil- 
dren. He devoted himself to that duty. 

There is something beautiful in the picture 
that is sometimes seen in life, of a youth 
hardly yet on the verge of manhood, assum- 
ing cheerfully the duty and the burden of pro- 
viding for a dependent family, left helpless by 
the death of a father. It is virtue, fraternal, 
filial, and heroic as that which bore a father 
from the flames of Troy. Roger Sherman did 
more. Feeling deeply the disadvantages in 
his own case of a want of more facilities for 
education, as his industry afterward accumu- 
lated the means, he gave two of his younger 
brothers an education for professional life. 
Removing at the age of twenty-three with his 
inother and family from eastern Massachu- 
setts to the town of New Milford, in western 
Connecticut, it is related that he traveled the 
whole distance on foot and carried his kit 
of tools upon his shoulders. With a burn- 
ing and unconquerable thirst for knowledge, 
he became a self taught mathematician and 
scholar. Like Washington, he became a sur- 
veyor ; like Franklin, he made astronomical 
calculations and prepared tables for almanacs 
published in the city of New York. Borrow- 
ing a law book or two, without a day's instruc- 
tion in law school or office, he mastered the 
principles of legal science and was admitted 
to the bar when thirty-three years old, an age 
most men would think too far advanced to 
begin the work of such a profession ; yet he 
became one of the first jurists in the State. 

The next year he was elected to the colo- 
nial Legislature, and then began his public 
life, which continued almost wiihout interrup- 
tion until his death. After a few years of 
practice he was made judge of the county 
court of Litchfield county. Removing to New 
Haven in 1761, he was soon appointed to the 
same office in that county ; and in 17(J(j he was 
appointed judge of the superior or highest 
court in the colony, which office he held 
twenty-three years, until alter the adoption 
of the Federal Constitution. For nineteen 
years he was also assistant, or member of 
the upper branch of the General Assembly. 
With Trumbull, he was among the foremost 
to resist the oppressive measures of taxation, 
and the encroachments of the Crown on the 
rights of the colony. The stamp tax, with 
such men at the head of the people, could not 
be enforced in Connecticut. The stamps sent 
there were returned, uncanceled and unsold ; 
and though her deeds at that date ran in the 
name and year of King George, no deed or 
parchment on her records bears the blot of his 
stamp upon its face. He was elected to the 



first general Congress of the colonies that 
assembled in 1774; and with all his duties as 
judge, as assistant, and as member of the Gov- 
ernor's council of safety in his own State, he 
was a leading member of Congress, and upon 
its most important and laborious committees. 

It is enouiih to show the estimation in which 
he was held by his associates in Congress, that 
he was selected as one of the committee of 
five, with Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, and 
Livingston, to prepare a draft of the Declara- 
tion of American Independence. The world 
knows how well the work was done. Sherman 
with Adams had no fear but that their work 
would stand ; his life had been one of encounter 
with obstacles that most men would shrink 
from, and he saw none to intimidate him in 
the pathway to independence. Yet those men 
all knew when they signed that Declaration, 
that their only alternative was success or a 
scaffold. Hanging was then more popular for 
treason, as well as other crimes, than it is 
now. When young Charles Carroll, of Mary- 
land, hastening to be in time to sign the Decla- 
ration wrote his name, it is said that some of 
the delegates remarked, " You will get clear, 
there are several of your name in Maryland." 
With a dash of his pen he wrote the words "of 
Carri)llton,'- saying, "They will know me 
now." And in all those liftysix immortal 
names, with bold John Hancock's at their 
head, there is no trace of trembling or agitation 
in a single signature save one, and his hand 
trembled only from age and paralysis, for he 
knew no fear. 

The spirit of the English law, as well as 
the rage of England at their colonies for their 
resistance, was then such as to insure sum- 
mary execution for the leaders, in the army as 
well as in Congress, if they were unsuccessful. 
When some one sneeringly remarked, for per- 
sons spoke sneeringly of those in office then 
as well as now, that Governor Trumbull's 
family were well provided f)r, the younger 
Trumbull replied, " Yes, we are well provided 
for; we are sure of four halters if we do not 
succeed." 

At the close of the war Sherman was ap- 
pointed one of a committee of two to make the 
first com[ilete revision of the statute laws of 
his State, a work -which was admirably per- 
formed. He was chosen the first mayor of the 
city of New Haven, when Jier charter was 
granted in 1784, which office her citizens com- 
pelled him to hold until his death, though 
absent much of the time in discharge of the 
duties of his other positions. 

But a work of far more importance to the 
country and the world awaited Sherman. A 
common danger and a common necessity had 
held the States together during the war; but 
when that bond of union was gone, their Arti- 
cles of Confederation were found to be what 
Lord North stigmatized them in the outset, "a 
rope of sand." Outbreaks and armed resist- 
ance to law were occurring in some of the 
most patriotic States. A Con vent ion was called 
as a last resort to devise some w;iy to give the 
general Congress additional powers, and to 



provide a remedy for the existing defects in 
the articles of union. Sherman, Ellsworth, 
and William Samuel Johnson, the three ablest 
lawyers in the Stale, were appointed delegates 
from Connecticut. 

From May till the Convention adjourned 
in September, 1787, Sherman was constantly 
present, and was one of the leading minds in 
proposing, advocating, and adopting the great 
distinctive features of the Constitution. He 
had made the science of government a study 
for years, and there was found among his 
papers after his death, a manuscript prepared 
several years before the Convention of 1787, 
containing provisions for reipedying the defects 
of the old Articles of Confederation, nearly 
all of which were substantially incorporated 
in the new Constitution. He was thoroughly 
imbued with the doctrine of State rights in its 
true sense; not that miserable perversion of the 
term, called State sovereignty, that would in- 
clude the right of withdrawal from the bond of 
Union, dissolution and universal ruin. He 
represented the principles of his State faith- 
fully in this respect, fjr Connecticut was one 
of the earliest and foremost in its assertion 
of the doctrine of State rights. She was far in 
advance of the other colonies or States upon 
this quf^siion, for she had lived under a char- 
ter and form of government that made her 
substantially a free and independent colony 
for more than a hundred years. Her dele- 
gates alone of all the colonies had refused to 
enter into a union, proposed in convention at 
Albany, July 4, 1754, just twenty-two years 
before the Declaration of Independence, for 
the common defense of the colonies, with a 
grand council chosen by the colonies, and a 
governor general appointed by the Crown. 
They feared that it might "be employed to 
the subversion of their liberties." In Sher- 
man's language, as a brief abstract of it is 
found in the Madison Papers, early in the 
proceedings of the Convention of 1787, " the 
objects of the union he thought were few: 
first, defense against foreign danger ; secondly, 
against internal disputes and a resort to force; 
thirdly, treaties with foreign nations ; fourthly, 
regulating foreign commerce and drawing rev- 
enue from it." These, with a "few lesser 
objects," he said, were all that "rendered a 
confederation of the States necessary ; all 
other matters, civil and criminal, would be 
much better in the hands of the States." 

Sherman's clear conception of the rights of 
the people and the proper powers of govern- 
ment were such that he saw more plainly 
than some of his associates, that neither State 
nor national Government should be recognized 
as having too broad powers of legislation. 
Early in the proceedings of the Convention 
Mr. Randolph, of Virginia, submitted a series 
of resolutions for action. One of them de- 
clared "that the national Legislature ought 
to be empowered to enjoy the legislative rights 
vested in Congress by the Confederation, and 
moreover to legislate in all cases to which the 
separate States arc incompetent, or m which 
the harn:ony of the United States may be in- 



6 



terrupted by the exercise of individual legis- 
lation." When the question was taken in 
Committee of the Whole upon this clause of 
Mr. Randolph's resolutions, the delegates of 
every Siate voted for its' adoption except Con- 
necticut, which was divided; Roger Sherman 
alone of all the delegates being recorded as 
voting "no." And it was Mr. Sherman's pen 
that afterward, in the First Congress, gave the 
tenth article of amendment its peculiar form 
and phraseology, that "the powers not dele- 
gated to the United States by the Constitution, 
nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved 
to the Slates respectively, or to the peopled 
One of the propositions urged in tiie Con- 
vention was the power of a negative by a two- 
thirds vote of Congress upon all laws passed 
by State Legislatures interfering, "in the opin- 
ion of Congress," with the general interests 
and harmony of the Union; and this was ad- 
vocated by such statesmen as Madison and 
Pinckney. Sherman vigorously opposed it, 
as subversive of the rights of the States, and 
this and other kindred propositions were finally 
defeated. The question of one term only for 
the presidential office was repeatedly discussed; 
and a clause to that effect was adopted, with a 
longer term of office, by the votes of all the 
States but Connecticut and Georgia. It was 
afterward reconsidered, and again adopted by 
the votes of all the States except Connecticut, 
Pennsylvania, and Delaware. When the term 
of office was afterward reduced to four years 
the clause against reeligibility was stricken out 
by nearly an unanimous vote. Sherman op- 
posed the restriction to one term at every stage 
of the jjroceedings, saying, according to the 
Madison Papers, that he "was against the 
doctrine of rotation, as throwing out of office 
the men best qualified to execute its duties." 
"If he behaves well, he will be continued; if 
otherwise, displaced on asucceedingelection." 
He resisted the use of the word "slave," or 
any admission in the Constitution that there 
could be a property in man ; for he believed 
in his heart that God had made of one blood 
all the nations of the earth. Though he was 
too strongly imbued with the principles of 
State rights to interfere with the laws of the 
States upon that subject, yet he believed the 
Constitution should lend it no countenance or 
color of authority. His opinion of the true 
construction of the clause for the rendition of 
fugitives, which was never designed by its 
frainers to impose its servile work upon officers 
of the national Government, may be well un- 
derstood from his language in the Convention, 
" that there was no more propriety in the pub- 
lic seizing and surrendering of a slave or ser- 
vant than a horse." This was hisanswer, tak- 
ing those who claimed there was a property 
in the service of men upon their own ground. 
Madison, Pinckney, and others proposed that 
the Supreme Court should have the power to 
try all impeachments; Sherman earnestly re- 
sisted it, claiming that this grave and delicate 
duty should rest upon no judges appointed by 
the President, but that the States themselves, 
represented and sitting as equals in the Senate, 



was the only high and legitimate tribunal for 
trials of this important character. 

But the crowning work of Sherman in that 
Convention, with the aid of three or four other 
leading delegates, was the adoption of that 
new and anomalous feature for a national 
Government in the Constitution, the equalitj' 
of the States in the Senate. Witli his deep 
convictions of the necessity of preserving the 
rights of the States, he had worked out the 
difficult problem of a permanent union of in- 
dependent Slates in one national Govern- 
ment. He saw that to preserve the smaller 
States from encroachments or absorption by 
the larger, they must be equal in one of the 
branches of the law-making power of the 
General Government, while the other branch 
should more directly represent the people of 
the States, according to their greatness or 
population. He saw that a union of two 
forces was necessary, by which the system of 
States might move on together in one har- 
monious whole. He saw, certainly, what all 
afterward admitted, that the Constitution could 
never be ratified by nine of the thirteen States, 
unless the smaller ones were recognized as 
equals in one branch of the central Legislature ; 
and that the anxious work of months would 
result in its rejection, and anarchy, jealousy, 
and ruin would follow in swift succession. 

The larger States resisted the proposition, 
claiming that the smaller States might com- 
bine to rob the larger of their rightful powers ; 
and that the same rule of representation should 
apply to both branches of Congress. Virginia 
resisted it; every State south of her resisted it. 
Twice was it voted down ; and twice did it 
seem they could never complete their work so 
as to secure its ratification by a sufficient num- 
ber of States. But, upon Sherman's motion, 
after its second defeat, a select committee of 
one from each State was raised to consider 
this vital portion of the frame-work of the Con- 
stitution ; and Sherman's arguments before 
that committee were so clear and convincing 
that a majority at last consented to adopt that 
feature in the organization of the Senate, with 
a provision in the nature of a compromise, 
that all bills for raising revenue should origin- 
ate in the popular branch of Congress ; and 
the report of the two provisions was made to 
the convention. Virginia and others of the 
larger States still resisted. Madison claimed it 
would destroy the proper foundations of Gov- 
ernment to substitute an equality in place of a 
proportional representation; and Randolph 
called upon the Convention to adjourn, that 
" the larger States might consider the steps 
proper to be taken in the present solemn 
crisis of the business." It was finally adopted 
by a bare majority, and the great obstacle to 
its ratification by the smaller States removed. 

Connecticut had been ably supported in this 
struggle by Patterson, of New Jersey, and 
others ; but it was Sherman's prudence and 
sound judgment mainly that saved the Con- 
vention from splitting asunder upon this rock 
of discord. In the angry strife of days over 
this question he maintained his calmness ; 



and at just the right time, in just the right 
place, with a few well-chosen words of con- 
ciliation and sound argument, he convinced a 
majority of the delegates of the wisdom and 
necessity of this feature in the Constitution. 
I have claimed no more for Sherman than his- 
tory awards him. The records and debates 
of the Convention, and all contemporary evi- 
dence fully prove it. Hollister's history, in the 
chapter on the Constitution of the United 
States, shows clearly the great work of Sher- 
man in the framing of that instrument. Ban- 
croft, not having reached this period in his 
history, but writing one of the early chapters 
of the revolutionary struggle, and looking for- 
ward to the future years of Sherman, says of 
him, that "his solid sense and powers of 
clear analysis were to constitute him one of 
the master builders of the Republic." And 
the ablest southern statesman of this century, 
John C. Calhoun, in his well-known speech in 
the Senate, in February, 1847, has given his 
full confirmation. 

There was a painting of a rising sun behind 
the chair of the president of the Convention. 
It is related that when the last name was about 
to be signed to the Constitution, Franklin, 
then past four score years, but with his eye 
still undimmed, pointing to the picture and 
speaking of the ditSculty of artists in distin- 
guishing between arising and setting sun, said 
to some of the members : 

"I have often and often, in the course of this ses- 
sion, and in the vicissitude of my hopes and fears 
a.s to its issue, looked at that behind the president, 
without being able to tell whether it was rising or 
setting ; but now, at length, I have the happiness to 
know that it is a rising and not a setting sun." 

A rising sun ! And yet how little could 
those men, with all their broad statesmanship 
and forecast, realize the future of that coun- 
try whose sun was just rising upon their great 
work. Sherman had said in debate in the 
Convention, in providing in the Constitution for 
the admission of new States, that the number 
of new States could probably never equal or 
exceed the old, and no member had been wild 
enough in his imagination to predict a larger 
number. Louisiana with its vast valley was 
then not theirs ; the continent beyond the Mis- 
sissippi was an unknown land. If the vail of 
the future could have been lifted, and they 
could have seen that sun at the end of one 
hundred years, emerged from the clouds of civil 
war, and still in its ascent, as we trust, shining 
upon forty States and forty millions of free- 
men ; or if the end of another century could 
have disclosed to them its scores of Stales 
and a hundred millions of people, each bearing 
the proud title of an American ciiizen, filling 
up a continent from ocean to ocean, and from 
the frozen lakes that fling off the glancing sun- 
beams to the tropical seas where eternal sum- 
mer reigns, well might they have bowed their 
faces to the earth in blinding amazement, and 
prayed God to spare their aching sight the 
burning glories of the vision. 

The Constitution adopted, Sherman returned 
home to secure its ratification by his State. 
He was a member of the State convention 



called in the following January for that pur- 
pose, and by pen and speech did much to 
make his State among the first to ratify the 
work in which he had borne so prominent a 
part. Elected from New Haven as a mem- 
ber of the first House of Representatives under 
the Federal Constitution, he took a foremost 
rank among the influential men of that body. 
Connecticut then had one thirteenth of all 
the members of the House, her average 
number in the old thirteen States. The won- 
derful growth of the country in less than a 
century is illustrated by the fact that now she 
has less than one sixtieth, and after this 
Congress will have less than one seventieth 
of the members. There were many amend- 
ments to the Constitution proposed during 
the first Congress that were not adopted. 
New York alone proposed thirty-two of them. 
Sherman generally op]DOsed them, claiming that 
time should be given for the Constitution to be 
fairly tested, and as defects were discovered 
the remedy by amendment could be applied. 

An amendment was proposed, acknowledg- 
ing the it)alienable right of the people to in- 
struct their representatives upon all questions, 
in addition to the right of petidon for a redress 
of grievances; a practice in the British Paidia- 
ment until the great Burke boldly resisted it 
a few years before. While sustaining the right 
of petition, Sherman strenuously opposed the 
doctrine of instruction ; for he believed, with 
Burke, that a representative in Parliament or 
Congress was elected to be a " pillar of the 
State, and not a mere weather-cook on the top 
of the edifice, to indicate the shiftings of every 
fashionable gale," or point the way the wind 
blew at home. When told that a certain bill 
for raising revenue to restore the public credit 
would be unpopular with his constituents, his 
reply was, '' The only way for me to know if 
popular opinion is in favor of a measure is 
to examine whether it is right;" words that 
might well be blazoned on the walls of this 
Chamber, for our instruction and guidance. 

He strongly supported the assumption of the 
State debts and the great financial measures 
brought forward by Alexander Hamilton, the 
first Secretary of the Treasury, a statesman 
of whom Webster said that "he touched the 
dead corpse of the public credit and it sprung 
upon its feet." 

The States had severally contracted large 
debts during the war of the Revolution, some 
of them in much larger proportion than others. 
It was urged that the debts of ihe several States, 
that had accrued for the common benefit and 
defense of all, should be assumed by the na- 
tional Government, as the new Constitution 
had taken from the State authorities the right 
to collect duties upon imports, upon the faith 
of which the debts in a great measure had been 
created. No internal taxation could meet these 
obligations without ruin to several of the States. 
Once adopted by a bare majority in the House, 
the vote was soon alter reconsidered and de- 
feated by the votes of new members that were 
not present at the first vote. An earnest and 
bitter contest followed, and though justice to 



8 



creditors and public necessity aliiie demanded 
the assumption of the State debts by the Fed- 
eral Government, neither the wisdom and clear 
logic of Sherman nor the fiery eloquence of 
Fisher Ames could save it from defeat in the 
House. The plan of assumption, as originally 
proposed by Sherman, was finally adopted by 
the Senate before the close of the session, and 
concurred in by the House after a long and 
exciting struggle, and the foundations of a 
national credit and a national prosperity were 
established. 

At the close of the First Congress Sherman 
was elected to the Senate, and after two years' 
service in that body, the debates of which 
were not published, he died in July, 1793. 
The tablet on his tomb at New Haven speaks 
of him as " mayor of the city of New Haven, 
and Senator of the United States," the two 
offices he held at the time of his death. 

The great men who were associated with 
Sherman have left on record their estimate of 
his ability and distinguished services. John 
Adams, long after the death of Sherman, wrote 
of him that he had ''the clearest head and 
the steadiest heart," and that he was '" one of 
the soundest and strongest pillars of the Revo- 
lution." Jetferson wrote of him that " he 
was a very able and logical debater, steady in 
the principles of the Revolution, always at the 
post of duty." 

His purity and integrity as a public man and 
as a private citizen were equally eminent. His 
strongest opponents never failed to recognize 
those high qualities in his character. He would 
do right though the heavens fell. And it is 
not known that a word of slander was ever 
spoken of him. Washington could not escape 
the fiercest and mostatrocious libels and abuse. 
Trumbull's sensitive spirit was wounded by 
bitter and calumnious charges against his 
honesty and his patriotism near the close of 
the war; but an indignant people fully vindi- 
cated their fair fame. It was Sherman's sin- 
gular lortuue to escape even the breath of 
calumny, and he walked through the fiery 
furnace of political life for forty years without 
BO much as the smell of fire upon his garments. 
I have said that Trumbull was fortunate in 
his children; the same may be said of Sher- 
man. With a good old patriarchal family of 
fifteen children, he found time in all his pub- 
lic employments to care well for their good 
training and instruction. He devoted the earn- 
ings of a life of industry to give them a thor- 
ough education, and to raise them to a con- 
dition better than his own had been in early 
life. Nor did his liberality in this respect 
stop with his own children. A nephew, edu- 
cated by him, Roger Minott Sherman, was 
long one of the first lawyers in the land. Four 
of Roger Sherman's daughters married four 
such men as .ludge Simeon Baldwin, Jeremiah 
Evarts, Samuel Hoar, and President Day of 
Yale College. His descendants have stood in 
the front rank of the learned professions. 
One of them now represents the United States 
among the eminent counsel for the Geneva 
conference. More than one of them have 



been in the Cabinet ; they have been in the 
Senate; they have been in this House ; and, 
if the gentleman will pardon liie allusion, 
there sits near me now, as a member of this 
House, a grandson of Roger Sherman, whose 
earnest zeal and eloquence on this floor in 
behalf of universal education and good gov- 
ernment is worthy of his honored ancestry. 

I should omit the chief and crowning ele- 
ment of greatness in the characterof these two 
men if I did not speak of theirdevotion and faith 
in the Christian religion. Unlike the fallen car- 
dinal, they served their God with all the zeal they 
served their country. The}' had all the blessings 
the poet says should accompany old age : 

" As honor, love, obedience, trooiis of friends." 
But they had what was higher and better — 
the recollections of a long life devoted to the 
discharge of every religious duty. Both were 
earnest Christians from their youth up ; both 
were also well read in the whole science of 
theology. Trumbull, as I have said, had 
studied for that profession in his youth ; -and 
he wrote sermons after he laid off the cares of 
office in his old age. Sherman, with his thirst 
for all good knowledge, had studied thoroughly 
the doctrines of revealed religion and the 
writings of the ablest divines. Never were 
truer words spoken on such an Ofcasion than 
those of Trumbull's pastor at his funeral, that 
"his chief glory ariseth from his truly reli- 
gious and pious character." " Know ye not," 
said Rev. Jonathan Edwards, with equal truth 
concerning Sherman, using the words of David 
concerning Abner, " know ye not that there 
is a great man fallen this day in Israel." 

Trumbuij. and Sherman! Gratefully and 
gladly their State presents you two such bright 
exemplars in her history. It was a conception 
of almost poetic beauty, enacted into the dry 
details of an appropriation bill, that set apart 
that Hall for the statues of two of the illustri- 
ous dead of each State. There let their stat- 
ues stand, mute yet eloquent, surrounded by 
the representative statues of all the States of 
the Union — a senate in marble of heroes and 
of statesmen, in that grand old Hall which for 
nearly half a century rang with the eloquence 
of the ablest orators in the land ; where echoes 
of the voices of Clay and of Corwin, of 
Webster and John Quincy Adams, still linger 
among its columns and arches. There let 
their statues stand forever 1 Though their 
lips are silent, they yet speak to us with a 
voice of authority as from the skies, enjoining 
us to preserve and maintain the blessed insti- 
tutions of liberty and a free Government, which 
each of them gave the best years of a long life 
to establish and defend. And while American 
liberty shall survive; while Massachusetis with 
her wealth of great names shall honor the 
memory of her Hancock and her Adams; while 
Virginia shall remember to her undying glory 
that her soil contains the dust of her Wash- 
ington and her Jefferson, the names of Trum- 
bull and Sherman shall hold the same proud 
eminence, and be honcJred and cherished as 

household words in the hearts and by the 

hearthstones of the people of Connecticut. 



\ ¥ 



